Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday, July 15 2019.
There is hardly a week or weekend that goes by without news of car crashes on our highways or within city limits. One too many of them are fatal. Whether you are a driver, passenger, cyclist or pedestrian, once you’re out on the road you get to see it up close and it is scary.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday June 10th, 2019.
I cannot tell you how many times I wished that Styrofoam food containers would disappear. Call it a pet peeve but it goes beyond that. They leach harmful (albeit slow-acting and invisible) endocrine disruptors in the food stored in them, they are non-recyclable and indestructible, and one too many can be seen lying around parks or washing on river shores once the humans that emptied them have long left the scene.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday June 3, 2019.
The distance between my car and the one that swerved out of the lineup of cars waiting at a stop sign became very small, very fast. The driver had likely waited for a while (like everyone else in that long lineup waiting to turn right on 10th Ave. from Lorne St.) but his patience expired and he opted to break the line and turn left into incoming traffic. That was me, and the rest of the cars following. His maneuver was quick, and illegal too.
It was scary, though I was alone in the car. Had I not swerved the car to avoid impact, the passenger side would have been smashed quite badly. ‘What if’ is not a good question to have to ask while driving midday through town.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on May 27, 2019.
No matter how many times I see it, I never get tired of it: The emerald sheen of the surrounding hills this time of the year, the play of cloud shadows and sunshine which makes the grasslands look as if you’re gliding over in a boat and looking down at the sun-kissed grassy bottom of a shallow creek. It’s magical, there is no other way to put it.
I am nursing a recently injured knee so I am cautious while hiking but there is too much beauty to miss if I hold back. After a few days of taking it easy, I venture up the trails again in my favourite park of all.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday May 13th, 2019.
A few days ago, I read an opinion piece about Mother’s Day. The author, a teacher by profession, argued that less emphasis on the joy of Mother’s Day in the school environment would spare some kids of the heartbreak they experience as they do not have an all around loving and warm mother figure, whether due to social circumstances, medical or any other. The many reminders almost seem cruel, the author pointed out. I nodded in agreement as I read the piece.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday, May 6th, 2019.
Our first spring in Kamloops, back in 2013, came with a big surprise: lilacs! Everywhere you looked and lots of them, from majestic old trees to wee starter shrubs: We had landed in Lilac City! (I grew up immersed in lilac every spring and had searched for ‘lilac places’ since.)
Our first home in Kamloops was on Nicola street, towards the east end. Come spring I’d walk the back lanes just so I can see all the wondrous flowers hanging heavy and fragrant. Again and again, until the season was over.
Originally published as a column on CFJC Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on April 29, 2019.
Here we are again: like some relentless zombie, the story of the forgotten trash that belongs to Canada but is currently ‘vacationing’ in the Philippines has returned do haunt us, much to our shame. This time it comes with a threat, in the shape of a clear-as-daylight message from the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte: ‘We will declare war against them.’ (Canada, that is.)
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